


the silence is so loud

by x (ordinary)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Arguing, F/M, Feral Behavior, May/December Relationship, Older Man/Younger Woman, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Tension, Verbal Takedown, Violence, unfulfilled relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 05:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13897041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinary/pseuds/x
Summary: After an operation goes bad, Hana is suspended from active duty. She give Soldier: 76 a piece of her mind.





	the silence is so loud

In the evenings, she slips out from the mess hall to watch the sun set over the water. Gibraltar has always been pretty, and as the last rays of gold catch against still blue it is _luminous_ , almost ethereal. The blue-black of night emerges, and with it comes a chill. The day's heat fades from Hana's skin and gooseflesh raises beneath her clothes, loose and civilian. Foreign to her in ways she does not want to admit, in ways she does not even want to _think_ about, even though she's been off active duty for two weeks now. (Despite her protests. In rebellion, her suit hangs untouched in her closet, cold and sleek and _useless_.)

She picks at the too-long sleeve of her jacket, pulling at a stray thread of blue as the scowl on her face grows genuinely bitter. She is a cup of tea left too long to brew in water too hot. She is an inconvenient truth in the remnants of a dead organization slowly attempting to revive. It's not _fair_ , what they've done to her. She's pulled through dozens of combat scenarios, _eliminated_ countless omics, and laid waste to Talon forces with bullets from a gun she's no longer allowed to even carry, let alone fire.

Hana unfurls herself to stand as she looks out to the waves, at the foam crashing against the rocks, and wonders where the away squad is now. She'd heard rumblings of Nepal again as Reinhardt and Jesse boarded the drop ship, scouting for a rumored hideout-- forty some years of combat and Reinhardt's mouth is as big as it was on day one, it seemed. Any fondness in her heart is carved away by the knowledge that she could be out there _fighting_ and _isn't_ because of bureaucratic red tape she'd assumed there'd be none of. Not here. Not _now_.

But that's not quite true, is it? She is a woman grown, with no contract that bound her to Overwatch's whims. She has her pull, still: influence in both the public and private sectors. Even though Hana's time in the Korean military is over, she's still on retainer: an on-call, all-star soldier that just so happens to be moonlighting for the vigilantes holding the world together. ( _Again_ , she might add. Saving it _again_.)

So the worst is that she _could_ go, but invisible chains bind her to the base, to the judgment of a monkey and a man without a face, without a name.

She climbs down from the supply crate tower on the arch, sure-footed but far from dainty. With furrowed brows, Hana wistfully thinks of calling in her favors and going home. At least there _they_ would listen to her when she said she's fit for duty. They would _listen_ and recall her if they think for even a second that Overwatch reborn is doing her a dishonor.

But she doesn't _want_ to go. What they're doing _matters_.

They are piecemeal, still, this Overwatch crew. They are little arbiters of justice plucked from a global stage, held together by duct tape and genuine global unrest. Her from Korea, Lucio from Brazil, Orisa from Nigeria-- on and on and on it goes, stray parts collected and assembled in the shadow of a legacy allowed to run loose so long as they respected the unspoken agreement to _lay low._

Hana knows her history. She knows how it ended, once upon a time. She's seen Reaper now in his carved mask, has had one of his shotguns pressed to her fluttering throat. She's seen omics in every make and model, their gunfire piercing the armor of her mech as she ejects until she can buy the time for another, then another, then another.

She _knows_ that Overwatch is no paragon of sainthood, but the war is _still going_ and Overwatch is the only thing that has even remotely slowed it down.

So she stays, despite the stupidity, in the desperate hope that the idiot will change his _fucking_ mind.

The mess hall is empty, now, so she slips into the kitchen to raid the industrial sized fridge, eyeballing the rations with a critical eye. They are not without their sponsors and allies, but they're far from sanctioned-- far from fully _funded_ , as Winston has explained-- so the food choices can get a bit… Grim.

A hand reaches over her shoulder, grabbing the last pudding cup as she startles, whirling around to catch sight of Soldier: 76's visor, blank as ever.

"I wanted that," she says, immediate, and it wasn't _wholly_ a lie. She wanted it now that he'd taken it, now that it wasn't hers to have. Hana holds out her hand, expectant. "Gimme."

"I don't think so." As always, his voice is rough like new gravel, amused and unnerved in a singular breath. He talked to her like she's on the cusp of needing repairs, like he hadn't seen her fight, like she hadn't saved _his_ ass and gotten stuck out of commission. He _owed_ her. She hated that he didn't seem to realize it.

Hana ducks forward, thin fingers wrapping around his broad wrist in a grip too tight. "You don't think much, old man." He'd been so _careless_. Soldier: 76 fought like he had every fight to win but nothing to lose; and she's never heard him talk about family, about home, about anything but the current mission or the orders to follow. "Might do you some good if you did, hm?"

It's just a pudding cup, and Hana doesn't even like butterscotch, but it's the first time she's seen him in six days and she wants to know why he's decided she's worth talking to again. Wants to know how he thinks he can just act as though he hadn't severed her from her purpose. What use was a knife if it could not cut? _What use?_

"Don't play cute, Ms. Song. It doesn't suit you." Once upon a time, he'd given her a look from her head to her toes, and even with the mask on she could tell her judged her and found her wanting. No acknowledgment of her skills, no respect for her experience. That was fine, though. Hana didn't want his _approval_ , because she didn't need it. She was better than that, and knew it. She wanted his admission that she was his equal, like he begrudgingly gave to _everyone_ but her.

He opens his palm and the snack tumbles to the ground at the same moment she resolves not to scramble for it. Hana's eyes do not leave him as it rolls beneath a table, brown eyes fixed on her own furious reflection in his visor.

Instead, Hana does not release his wrist. Her grip tightens, and it is infuriating to know he's simply _letting_ her do this. This is a charade, but in two parts. How far will he let her go before he feigns he is unaware?

Especially because Hana is anything but subtle. She is a _bruiser_ , it is her archetype, it is her design. So she leans in and up, lip curling as she lectures him. "I know your techniques, _Soldier: 76_. You think you can come in here and act like you didn't ruin my _month_ with your cowardly antics?" She taps her foot in impatience, and isn't sure herself if it's mock or genuine.

In turn, he does not look in the least bit chastised. He is blank and only blank-- _maybe_ a little baffled, if she squints.

"Cowardly?" he asks, and of _course_ that's the the bait he rises to. It's a good thing she's had him figured out for a long fucking time. His behavior with her might be three years of stoicism and lectures, but what drives him is plainer than the light of day. She's always seen people as puzzles, and Soldier: 76 is not an exception to this rule. "Is _that_ what you think it was?"

Hana sneers, and under the fluorescent lighting, she knows her look isn't helping her case. She's unkempt and in pajamas beneath her jacket, and there are dark, raccoon circles beneath her eyes.

She also doesn't let it deter her.

"What else do you call the _classic_ avoidance right after I saved your sorry life?" Her free hand pushes hard at his chest, but of course he doesn't stumble. He's a super soldier, even as he is now, past his prime and glory days. A little exhaustion doesn't drain the power coursing through his veins.

He squares his jaw, and Hana can hear that he's talking through gritted teeth.  "Letting you rest. _Heal_." His free arm hangs limp at his side, making no further move to struggle against her. "Since Mercy keeps telling me you won't. Two minutes in my company and you're ready to… "

A half shrug, from him. A wordless gesture of _well, look at yourself,_ that has Hana feeling small all over again in a way she hates. He's _old_ but she's not some suckling babe. Not anymore, anyway, not like her first year on the field. She's seen death too, all of its empty nothingness before Mercy reached into her chest with science that felt like magic and rebooted her heart. She's seen her friends laid to rest on the battlefield, their remains unrecognizable bits of charred metal, plastic, and _flesh_. She's watched it all her eyes cold and her heart colder. Just because she isn't _as_ experienced doesn't make her a fucking fool, nor does it make her a mewling kitten incapable of helping itself.

The fight for all of them is hopeful and hopeless in a singular breath, but Hana is here as a soldier all the same. _Just_ like him.

Hana takes a deep breath, face turning red as she readies to show him what the term _toxic teammate_ truly means, blood thudding in her ears. Control felt very far away, a distant and unwanted object in the moment of her ire.

"Soldier 76," she says, chin tipped upwards in defiance, and there's venom on her tongue, poised. " _You_ are who led us into an operation without fully disclosing the imminent danger to your person. _You_ are who did not call for backup when you needed it. And it was _you_ who let _ego_ get in the way of the mission in the first place, because you thought you could handle the situation. The rest of us, _your_ team, were set up to fail, all because you are a _control freak_. Our failure was _inevitable_ because it was always going to involve getting you out a trap set and sprung just. For. You."

Hana's words echo off the walls, and all she sees is red despite the icy tranquility that had washed over her. All she tastes is the copper-tang of blood, and wishes in a whirlwind of righteous fury that it was his. He stands, silent and dumbstruck, and she can see him struggle to string together the right words to get her to stop. To get her to calm down.

But she _is_ calm. She is as cold as a winter stream, and just as relentless as she holds up a finger to silence him. "No, Soldier: 76. Do not talk." Hana has never felt so old in her entire life as she struggles with having to explain to this idiot of an old man why his own life matters.

"Do you think I _liked_ having to break protocol to save you? That I _wanted_ to extract you on my own, because I could tell that time was running out? I was your _only shot_. You should be _thanking_ me, and instead, you neuter me like I am still a _child_."

Hana doesn't even remember most of it, truly. Just flashes of a rage unleashed in the rattling of her chest. She remembers licking his blood splatter off her lips in exertion as she struggled to drag his body halfway down the hallway, to try and get out of the radius of Sombra's hack. She remembers the tickling warmth of his biotic field before it flickered off a final time, depleted. She remembers that the charge on his pulse rifle flickered between 0 and 1%.

She remembers despair, heavy on her tongue, the only thing keeping her from panicking.

She bludgeoned men to death with the butt of his dead rifle as he watched, askew with legs too broken to move.

Is it shame, she wonders? Is it shame of his own weakness that keeps him from acknowledging her worth, or is it worse? Has she still not earned _respect_?

She thinks back again, of what she's pieced together of the extraction thanks to reports from others. Covered in viscera, she had extricated him from enough immediate danger to retreat to a store room, barricading it until extraction arrived. The comms flickered back to life, reconnecting her to the main line where Winston promised her that help was on the way.

When the backup finally arrived to extract them, she'd been wild-eyed, hunched over his body, protective and broken. Incoherent and feral.

Afterwards, Mercy told her with a painful tenderness that she could repair the body but not the mind. There were two more weeks of psych evals before she could return active duty. At least.

Hana backs away, and her eyes are wet but no tears fall. She is not weaker for having them. He cannot look at her: his head is bowed like a dog that has been shamed, and it should fill her with glee, but instead she just feels sick. She does not want to play this game with him, where they knock up against the shape of the unknowable, but they are.

Soldier: 76 takes in a deep breath, fists clenching tight in his gloves as Hana turns away from him on her heel. As she does so, she takes pride in his loss for words, but it is not enough. She hurts, and so should he. Hama throws her head back over her shoulder, and it is her turn to judge someone and find them wanting. 

"Thank you for nothing, Soldier: 76," she says, perfectly polite. _Genial_. Recovered, as if the frisson in her had never existed. As if she had not yet saved him. Hana smiles, and it is too wide. "But you _are_ welcome for your life."


End file.
